A REDLAND city youth organisation has backed a call for governments to step up support for vulnerable teenagers.
The Cage Youth Foundation backed up findings from a damning report on youth homelessness released by Mission Australia last week.
The survey of 19,000 found one in seven young people risked becoming homeless. The annual survey found 13.5 per cent of the 15- to 19-year-old respondents faced the threat of homelessness.
That was a statistic too high for Cage director Linda Grieve who said government had neglected Redlands youth for too long.
Mrs Grieve, who set up the foundation with husband Pastor Peter Grieve, said Redland City had no temporary accommodation for youngsters living rough.
She said the findings from the Mission Australia report, although shocking, did not reveal the whole picture and Redlands was struggling to cope with rising homelessness.
"There are no temporary crisis care facilities in the Redlands and time and time again we hear of people who have taken young people in for that very reason," Mrs Grieve said.
"I do the rounds, trying to call a range of different service providers and the answer is pretty much the same - there is no where or they can be placed on a referral list.
"The extent of youth homelessness in Redlands is underestimated, as young people are more likely to couch surf or live in overcrowded dwellings.
"Where do they go? They sleep in a car, couch surf for as long as they can, but often find a quiet park area which opens them up to all sorts of dangers."
Over the past year, The Cage and its associated church C3, has had to rally around the community to raise food,clothing, mobile chargers, and go cards to help homeless youngsters.
Mrs Grieve said the organisation had handed out swags and personal hygiene packs but was stumped when it came to finding temporary emergency accommodation.
She said the homeless youth she dealt with said they had left the family home because they felt they had no alternative.
"In a perfect world, we would say how can this happen but sadly it does even here in this beautiful location of Redlands," she said.
"This is something that long term we would ike to be able to assist with in the establishing of a temporary crisis care on our facilities, but it comes down to people, time and money."
More than 100 federally funded services supporting children aged 12 to 18 to stay in the family home are under threat, with funding to cease in June next year.
